Commentary - Who truly controls America?

Who truly holds the reigns of power in this country? This question weaves its way through the Conspiracy Theory community regardless of the theory being researched. Power, the gaining of and maintenance of said power, is the root thread in all conspiracy theories. Many researchers and enthusiasts point to the Illuminati and it’s connected components such as the Bilderberg Group, Freemasonry and other secret societies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Just who is in power is worthy of debate and research, who is not in power is obvious. We, meaning you and I, have absolutely no power at any level in this country.

We are the bottom feeders in the food chain. When the average person thinks along the lines of class and finances we tend to think the rich are in power, and those with some riches seem to think so too. Both of those groups are sadly mistaken. True wealth, wealth that brings power to bear along with vast amounts of money is where the power lies. Several million dollars, an expensive infill home and putting the kids in private school puts you in the bottom feeder class with day laborers if you can’t bring true power to the equation. The only advantage that being rich provides is a little less discomfort in the day-to-day existence of life.

What is the source of true or pure power in America right at this moment? True or pure power comes in several forms but in the world of conspiracy theory there are only three areas where this power can be found. Controlling politics, finances and religion. All three intertwine in some theories but for the sake of this posting I’m going to address these three areas with real world examples of how this power is being wielded against us today.


Polemic Control

Regardless of whether you consider yourself a leftist, conservative, libertarian, environmentalist or apolitical; the true source of political power in America isn’t centered on the fair and honest operation of a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”. The true source of political power comes from the financial rewards offered by corporate America.

Laws are passed from bills written by lobbyists, of whom their allegiance is devoted to the companies they represent. The lawmakers allow this to happen for two reasons; to ensure they will get campaign contributions from those companies and their executives and to ensure that once they leave public office they will be guaranteed a paying position with either the corporations or the lobbying firms. The companies involved in this scheme need this full and complete control of legislation to ensure the aspects of government that were created to regulate their growth and exercise of power over the American public, are not unleashed upon them.

All that is left to do is keep the American public ignorant of their work, which is easily accomplished by controlling the mass media and by creating bills that are so large and complex that the average American will never be able to decipher the contents no matter how much time they are given to study the bill. It also helps to distract the public by creating inner worry and turmoil in their lives by controlling the economy and providing them with mindless entertainment that helps them to pass their time while they worry about bills and being employed.

From this work a small cadre can wield true and pure political control over the public at large. There will be no secret conspiracy to cover up and covert methods to operate are not needed. The conspiracy can be carried out in full view without worry of retribution because the layers of corruption are too deep and too overwhelming for one person to expose, and even then, what could one person do?


Economic Control

As I mentioned in the description of Polemic Control, the use of Economic Control can be used to meet the goal of gaining even more power or maintaining the power that is already held. The central aspect of economic control in America is the dwindling number of companies that provide goods and services. All goods and services in this country are controlled by a small number of groups, which grow larger by mergers and buyouts, which reduces their numbers even more. The power and wealth becomes concentrated and the resources for them to continue this trend expand exponentially at each merger.

Look at your paycheck and think of where it must go before you have, if ever, money left over. Food and shelter are your main concerns. Transportation and maintenance of your goods and life follow. By time you are done with the monthly bills, how much of the money that you worked so hard to earn is left? Very little and that amount is dwindling weekly.

You need a place to stay, be it a house that you are paying to own or an apartment that you rent. There goes the largest chunk of your hard earned pay, a place to live. You have to eat and no matter how much variety you have in your diet or how little you may eat, the foods you buy are made by a small number of companies. 98% of all poultry is produced by a small number of companies like Tyson and Cargill. 50% of all agricultural products that are produced come from just two corporate farming companies. 80% of all beef slaughtered in America is produced and owned by just 4 companies. 60% of all pork produced in America comes from just 4 firms.

You need water, heating, garbage services and sewerage services where you live. Not to mention electricity and possibly gas for cooking and heat or oil for heating your home. Now the utilities are being scoured by private buyout firms, looking to plunder your checking account and the money held by the communities where those services provide a vital service. Gas and oil are subjects all to themselves. The billions of dollars made in pure profit every single month by even the most ineptly managed oil company are staggering.

The money grab is non-stop and against you, the government will not stop it because the companies have already bought and sold our government. The mega-companies will continue to narrow in number, prices will always escalate and quality in their products will always deteriorate.


Theocratic Control

Founder of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, has never made it a secret that the goal of the Christian Coalition and the offshoot groups that orbit around this movement, Regent University which was created by Robertson and the people who align themselves to this movement; are actively engaged in taking control of the American government so that they may shape the laws of this nation to suit their beliefs and not yours.

Their success has been astonishing as it has only been of late that the tip of the iceberg has been seen. One revelation in the scandal about the firings of US Attorneys, it was learned that over 150 graduates of the Regent law school, a Tier-IV university, are employed at various levels of power within the US Justice Department. Just how deep this infiltration of our government by agents of the theocratic conspiracy goes is unknown.

This group bypassed economic control and instead aimed for a polemic means to their ends but their connection to the polemic and economic forces are strong. The reason is simple. It’s not because the politicians and people who hold power over politicians have a deep-seated faith in God. It’s not because Big Business are Christian men and women who wish to share their wealth with the impoverished. The reason they have allowed this group to gain the power they now have is that they are enablers for the goals of the people who hold polemic and economic power.

The Theocratic power base accepts the money given to them and the money that they are allowed to share in as they promote the needs of Big Business by placing themselves in positions that will allow them to control the mechanisms that control companies. The movement into the Justice Department by the religious right-wing is a sign of this as that department can control investigations into corrupt business practices.


How this affects you, today.

Today is Friday and most of us get paid for our work on this day. Let’s look at your routine after work and see how it empowers the conspirators who wield power in America.

After you get off work you’ll probably go to the grocery store. On the way to the store you may pass a gas station and notice that gas is now $.10 higher per gallon than the last time you filled your tank. You may even consider how much it would cost you to convert your car to Ethanol or Bio-Diesel. When you get to the grocery store you get sticker shock. Almost everything we eat now is made with corn.

Corn is at historic all-time high prices because of two things. The fuel needed in the growing and harvesting process for the corn is at outrageously high levels and corn is in demand outside the food market for use in creating Ethanol, the higher cost gets passed to you. The cost of fueling trucks that transport the food to the wholesaler, then the distributor and then to the retailer is higher; the higher cost gets passed to you. The grocery store has to pay higher rates for electricity to light the store and keep the freezers going as well as a higher price for the goods they sell. The higher cost gets passed to you.

You drive home, maybe stopping for gas at a station that’s $.03 cheaper per gallon than the others. You get home, use gas to cook dinner, burn electricity to see what you are doing and watch TV, of which the cable rates have gone up 45% over the last 10 years, and you worry about the bills you have to pay this month with what little is left from your paycheck.

Your income is steadily dropping and there is no such thing as job security no matter how hard you work or how good you are at your profession. The profits made by the companies that are eating more and more from your paycheck are much higher now because the price of raw materials has skyrocketed. Their bank accounts are bulging at the seams while yours is frighteningly short. Big Oil has even said they don’t even know what to do with all the extra cash they are floating in.

You can’t look to the government for relief because they are in the pockets of Big Business and they are busy mopping up such things as war, terrorism, corruption and foreign policy. Sorry but they are just too busy to do something about your monthly bills.

So, what’s left for you to turn to but God? Guess who’s got that market cornered too?

Commentary - A system of structure and definitions for Conspiracy Theory - Part 2

In part 1 of this post I described a system that can be used to classify and categorize conspiracy theories. Part 1 can be found here:

http://theconspiratorsnest.blogspot.com/2007/04/system-of-structure-and-definitions-for.html

In this part I give examples of using this system and how to expand and/or clarify existing theories. Far too often the scope of these theories can cause us to fail to see the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes. Larger connections can be made and insights gained if a method of organizing these theories is found.

There is great promise of using databases, social networking software and other forms of database analysis for CT research. The drawbacks to this approach are the time needed, money and the required skill sets to make this approach work. Creating the database would be the real devil of such a project unless several people teamed up for the effort. OCR software, scanners, a library of reference material and a quality control process would address part of the problem, but you would still need the time and dedication to scan and review tens if not hundreds of thousands of pages of books and magazines. Addressing NNTP, static web pages and dynamic forum data would be an entirely different project. The lone researcher or enthusiast is left to their own resources.

Lets begin with a subject which has received very little attention from conspiracy theorists but is beginning to make waves in the area of political science blogs. The subject being a conspiracy theory stating that an aspect of the religious right wing is attempting to take control of the US Government, more specifically, that the conspiracy is the fruition of Pat Robertson’s goal to change the world by using graduates of Regent University.

Using the system I described we can classify this as a Crossover Conspiracy Theory (CCT) as it has a foundation in two of the three social systems that must be present to become a conspiracy theory. This theory involves Theocracy and Politics. The main foundation is Theocratic and its secondary foundation is Polemic. The goal (a changed world that follows a specific religious belief) is attained after gaining and influencing political power surreptitiously. Therefore, we can call this a Theocratic Crossover Conspiracy Theory with a Polemic Secondary Foundation.

Using this description we can then overlay the theory with other theories which are classified and categorized in the same manner. From this overlay the researcher can then look for the common denominators of each and determine if there is a confluence between the two. The common denominators can be people, identical statements of “Groupthink” (propaganda), organizational structures, shared events and even geographical anomalies (two headquarters or centralized services situated on the same street or same location).

When a connection is made from an overlay the researcher can then focus on the vetting process to see if their theory is part of a much larger conspiracy or isolated. Isolated theories are not lesser in their importance; it simply removes the theory from a larger, more complex theory.

Let’s look at the Regent University theory again with this information. We have 150 graduates of Regent University serving under the Bush Administration. Quite an amazing fact considering it is a Tier-4 law school that has only been in existence for less than 30 years. Even more impressive is the fact that some Regent alumni have climbed to extremely high positions, most notably within the Justice Department.

Monica Goodling, the recently discussed Justice Department official who is among those at the center of the scandal involving the fired US Attorneys, was a 1999 graduate of Regent and her final position at Justice was Senior Liaison for the White House. For a 33 year old who only had 7 years experience in law, this is a stunning rate of advancement. Did she get this position of enormous responsibility from her own record as a trial, corporate or personal lawyer? No, she did not. After graduating from Regent and before joining the Justice Department she worked for the RNC at their DC headquarters in the Bush Opposition Research Team, who’s main claim to infamy was leading the faux outrage riot at a southern Florida elections office which was fully documented by the major media outlets during the election re-count controversy.

On the surface, Goodling was nothing more than an astute and talented social networker, an eager overachiever who nurtured relationships with mentors who placed her in higher and higher places of power. So how does she act as a common denominator in this scandal? Her very presence and that of the other 149 fellow alumni is a red flag for the researcher. Her exponential rate of promotion and her proximity to two Theocratic and Polemic conspiracy theories make her and her educational partners a serious common denominator.

The theory about Pat Robertson's goals overlays perfectly with the fired US Attorney scandal. The goals of the Moral Majority/Christian Coalition and Robertson’s stated goals of Regent University include numerous stated desires to change or overthrow many legal findings, not limited to but including the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. The censorship of media outlets that they declare to be “anti-family” and removing the recognition of homosexuality and the rights of homosexuals are also among theory stated legal goals.

These people, Goodling included, have been involved with the actual process of removing Attorneys who were not 100& “Pro-Bush” and in their place they would be hiring lawyers who did agree with every political and religious view of the far right wing religious extremists. The “Pro-Bush” platform can be seen as having many platforms. But anti-abortion, anti-homosexual and pro-family are a few of the main points of argument that they use. From those points they branch out into the far extreme ends of ideas.

From this exercise you can see how this system works and how it can help you make those connections. Try it yourself with a new theory you’ve had or with one of the classics like the JFK assassination or Freemasonry. You may find a few surprises, possibly a new connection that no one has seen before. Good luck!

A system of structure and definitions for Conspiracy Theory - Pt 1

Like most people who have studied conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists for any given period of time, I have formed my own opinions on the nature of the CT field, and how it really interacts with the world around us. Rather than focus on a single subject within the field I have "shopped around", so to speak, and looked at many corners of the field.

One area that seems to be somewhat vacant of research by the conspiracy theorists themselves, in my opinion, is the nature of what a conspiracy theory really is and what conditions must be present to qualify as a conspiracy theory. While there are many academics who have taken the subject of conspiracy theory as a whole as an area of their research and writing, it seems we are lacking in being able to fully describe who we are or even what it is that we do, and why we do "it."

I'd like to present for your consideration, in two parts, a system of hierarchical structure and definitions that I use in my research and how you can use this system. This system will help you define a conspiracy theory, how to categorize the theory itself and how to use this system of classification and categories. A researcher can link seemingly unconnected theories together if they know how and by the same token a researcher can separate the wheat from the chaff and bring order to a seemingly unorganized CT.

In his "Octopus" research, the late Danny Casolaro was reportedly able to find the connecting points for a multitude of conspiracies and weave them together into a cohesive structure that created a unifying conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, we will never see his work but we can work toward a more formal approach to our work which may help us create an overview that may resemble what he was trying to achieve. I'm not looking to create a unifying theory for conspiracism but using this system has helped me find the connections between seemingly unrelated events and strip away the disinfo planted in some theories. Here is my system.

The definition of a Conspiracy Theory (CT)

1) A situation and/or event where an individual or group of individuals conspires with another individual or group of individuals, to maintain and/or gain power in one or more of the three systems of society:

- Polemic
- Economic
- Theocratic

2) The true nature of the situation or event that is the subject of the conspiracy must remain secret to protect the physical and/or legal security of those involved in the conspiracy.

3) The base motivation of the conspiracy is gaining and/or maintaining power.

4) Any theory which does not involve the gain or maintaining of power and cannot be directly linked to at least one of the three systems of society, cannot be identified as a conspiracy theory.

The three systems of society that I refer to; Polemic, Economic and Theocratic, are the foundations of any conspiracy theory and the foundations of our society itself. If the theory does not have a direct connection or implication of that connection with one of those three foundational systems, it is not a conspiracy theory. This point is essential.

For example, Bigfoot research if not a conspiracy theory field of study however, if a theory were proposed regarding the suppression of Cryptozoology study which addresses the consequences of unknown hominid proof and it's effects on the structure of scientific review, then it could be defined as a conspiracy theory. The field of Bigfoot studies would still not fall under CT but the theory proposed would be a CT. There is a hierarchical structure within the scientific community which maintains a level of power over the community. This is a Polemic system, and depending on the subject there may be connections to the Theocratic and Economic systems.

High Weirdness and the Weirdness Confluence

Using this guideline it is easy to classify Bigfoot studies as Cryptozoology and not Conspiracy Theory. The guideline also classifies instances and conditions where Cryptozoology can overlap with Conspiracy Theory. The two fields are not directly related but they can be conditionally related. Any High Weirdness subject can be defined by the fields of study that it belongs to, but it can have a conditional relationship with others in the Weirdness Confluence. High Weirdness subjects are any subject that followers of the Church of the SubGenius may find of interest, or derision. The study of kooks, art, obscure writings, politics, consumerism/anti-consumerism, Discordianism, Evangelism are all examples of High Weirdness. The Weirdness Confluence is the area where those strange interests intersect with the reality defined by non-Church of the SubGenius members.

Categories

Any conspiracy theory which has interlocking connections to all three of the societal systems and is totally dependant on all three, is classified as a Pure Conspiracy Theory (PCT). An example of PCT is the fabled Rand report which states that if Extra-Terrestial life were proven, it would require absolute secrecy from the public at large as it would cause a complete breakdown in the society that would effect religion, the economy and government. Many UFO and Alien conspiracy theories can be classified as PCT because of this foundational structure.

Any conspiracy theory which has interlocking connections to two of the societal systems, is classified as a Crossover Conspiracy Theory (CCT). An example of a CCT are the theories that swirl around the response to Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans. Those theories propose that financial gain is the cause of inaction and those in political power furthered the agenda because they are somehow directly connected to the economic gain. This CCT has direct ties to the Polemic and Economic foundations with no connection to the Theocratic foundation.

Any conspiracy theory which is directly connected to one of the societal systems and no connections to the remaining two, is classified as a Standalone Conspiracy Theory (SCT). An example of a SCT is the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by extreme fundamentalists. This SCT involves power over a Theocratic system and it's members and any polemic or economic gain is wholly incidental.

PCT, CCT and SCT are not hierarchical when compared to each other. All three categories have equal standing among each other. The hierarchical structure of CCTs and PCTs are defined by which of the systems appears to take precedence in the function of the CT. It is my belief that unless a unifying theory of conspiracism is formed, no CT will have a higher importance over another, only direct or conditional connections. Even within a unified structure I believe there could be instances where an SCT could be removed from the overall structure simply because of it's conditional connection.

Part Two

I will post part two within the week. Part two will define how to use this system of definition and categorization. I will include examples of how to clarify a theory with this system and how to expand a theory as well. I'd love to read any comments, suggestions, rants, ravings or insults that you may have. Please feel free to write me at conspiratorsnest@bellsouth.net

Update - Part 2 can be found here: http://theconspiratorsnest.blogspot.com/2007/04/commentary-system-of-structure-and.html